It's not supposed to snow in the South Forest, but the weather in the second-emptiest corner of Shelha is not the only thing behaving strangely. When an ex-tyrant started acting up again, Sethral had hoped it meant the end of lazy days and monotonou...
Sethral looked around as Silversand's plea broke the silence between them. The forest was warm and sunny, quiet except for the occasional buzzing insect or bird twittering in the trees. "Why? Did you h—"
The Royal gestured frantically for her to lower her voice. Sethral stared at her. Silversand glanced around, then edged closer to Whipper, her tail jittering.
Sethral gritted her teeth and mustered her knowledge of what Whipper had begun to teach her and Silversand along their way. 'Whipper?' she flicked.
'We're being watched.'
The world turned a somersault. Silversand was furrowing her brow, struggling to understand the silent language. Whipper whispered something to her and her paws began to prance on their own. The moment she turned away again, Sethral caught Whipper's fur.
He put a finger to his lips. 'I don't know who. Just be ready to run,' he flicked.
While the mountain foothills rose steep and high on the South Flats side of the chain, no such topography graced its forest flank. Barely noticeable dips and rises rolled the forest floor. Sethral glanced over her shoulder. She could see nothing, but she trusted Whipper. That said, Greenfalls might be easy to climb but at its base was a cliff. Silversand couldn't scale cliffs.
Silversand had taken to sniffing the air like it contained a murder trail, her paws tripping over obstacles she did not appear to notice. Sethral picked up a twig as quietly as she could. She snapped it.
The Royal leaped half a copper-length in the air. "Don't do that!" she squeaked when her fur had deflated again. "They'll hear it!"
"Who's 'they'?"
"Who?"
"What you just said! You said 'they' will hear us."
"Who's 'they'?"
Sethral was about to fire back when Silversand lunged at her. She bolted aside; the cat caught Whipper by the scruff and hurled him at a tree as a cackling, caterwauling howl exploded behind them. Creatures flew up their trail; uglier creatures than Sethral had ever seen, with sharp teeth and a nose horn and long, twisted front limbs. Their noise was deafening. Whipper had shot into the branches, screaming Sethral's name. Sethral wrenched Silversand skywards as two hunters cracked heads where she had been standing. The ground spun away.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Whipper pointed to Greenfalls and vanished into the trees. Sethral carted Silversand to the middle of the overgrown, cave-ridden mountain slope, deposited her in a cave and sat on her.
The cat writhed. "Get off me, you fat feathered fraud! I want to go back! Let me go! Stupid, mangy creatures, they would eat their own tails if they thought it was food. Mangy, yowling, stinking, low, kit-killing, nasty, filthy, stupid—"
